Now You're Four Whole Hours Behind
by CaffeineChic
Summary: After she dies, he dreams of her. And when he wakes up, it always comes as a blow when he remembers she's gone.


He lost his first wife to life... his inability to provide that which she desired.

He lost his second wife to death... his inability to fight that which ravaged her body.

She died in the night (in his arms), wrapped in silence and stillness and peace (and the soft skin of his arms around her waist, fingers locked with hers).

They had argued with Cottle for days to let her go home (the rooms that should have housed their future, now destined to house her death). She hadn't wanted to die full of tubes and attached to machinery. She had not needed to convince him, he knew the request was coming, knew that death was winning despite everything they had put into the fight. They talked to Cottle together. They left Life Station together (but not alone, death on their heels).

She died in the night, contentment beating from her heart and thrumming through her veins as the last _beats_ played out... and stopped. She drifted away (devastation searing through his blood when he realised she would not be sailing back). They had not been able to fight her body (or their people's scripture), could not overpower destructive cells (or prophetic words).

She had lived long enough to see the (un)promised land and to know in an instant how true defeat felt. But she had also lived long enough to know that she had loved and been loved in the purest of forms. It was enough, in the end, to make her happy. For that, he is grateful.

She is gone now and yet he remains. He had thought nothing could be worse than watching her slip away, but this, this was so much worse. Being the one that is left behind, the one that cannot follow, the one that stays to fulfill promises that were meant to keep her here and not them apart (that she will fight, that he will live on).

The days he can survive, barely – clutching, aching, trying desperately to make it through with work and his son and the fleet. He can pretend then that she is still with him, still breathing, still alive just... away. On her ship or at Quorum or at some meeting. In Life Station. Anywhere. But somewhere.

It is night that he loathes. It is night when his arms ache with how empty they are. When darkness and sleep creep into his bones to weigh him down, crushing him with their lies (he wakes heavier, more broken, darkness seeping in to fill the places that she had occupied). At night he dreams her to life. Dreams life into her. Dreams life with her. He is being killed by the happiness of a falsehood.

Every morning, waking is like losing her again. But worse. Because now he knows, now he knows the pain that comes with it. Before... when it was the idea of her dying that rotted through his mind, he could ignore and deny and focus on her hand beneath his, her presence in their home, the life in her body. But now... it is not an idea. It is real. It is fact. It is life without her.

It is agony.

It is agony to wake to the coldness of the sheets on her side (on which he will not sleep), the uncomforting heat on his side (on which he sleeps fitfully). But he cannot reclaim the other half of their bed, cannot make it his again.

It is agony to pass the fallen shoe (that he will not stand right), to see her suit still hanging in their closet (that he will not touch). He cannot remove the shoes or suit, cannot take her things from their space and clear them away. He cannot clear her away (he cannot distinguish between her things and her, he has only them now).

It is agony to be her widower (eased only by having been her husband, no matter how short a time).

It is agony.

He carries on. It is what she wanted.

Nothing moves at the correct speed anymore – it is drawn out, slowed, like through a haze (the ironic agony of how quickly the end of their time together had gone passed). He does not feel right, he cannot settle, nothing is how he remembers it before. Reds look different. Fabric feels different. His heart beats differently.

(The pulses of love for her that had pounded through the blood vessels are now razor blades slicing open the veins and arteries, bleeding his pain straight into his body. An internal bleed that no one else sees.)

Everything slows. He slows. It is not on (or with) purpose. He had promised her he would stay, that he would continue on. She had fought for her life (for their life), kept her word, trying with every ounce to damn the words of the scriptures. He would not fail her despite her body failing them both. But he still slows.

His movement, his mind, his responses.

His heart.

(This torn and strained and wounded muscle that no time can heal, no rest can repair.

Contracts.  
Relaxes.  
Repeats as it must.

It keeps him alive. But he is not living.)

He tries. He tries. He tries.

He fails.

He sleeps, alone and lonely. Night fills his bones.

He sees her in his sleep, as always. This glorious vision of her before him, with him.

(His heart.

Contracts.  
Relaxes.

Stills.)

The last promise he made to her – breaks in the night.

He drifts after her, is carried along by the current of their love.

He had promised he would stay, that he would survive. But he had also promised her forever. Not just in life.

He finds her on the shore.


End file.
